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Wednesday, February 05, 2014

2014 SO FAR . . . .

This past year, I have come so far but still have so far to go; the more I learn, the more I find that I'd need another lifetime to accomplish it all. The main focus besides getting our cottage and garden in order is still felting, of course, but I am still enamored with eco dyeing and eco printing. I have gotten some really brilliant information and tried some of it today - and I'm so excited with the results and this is just the beginning! pictures will follow soon as it is too dark outside now for me to use my new little photography studio set up in one of our screened in porches. I do love printing with leaves but I also love natural dyeing - I've stocked up on a big variety of natural substances from Maiwa but there is so much to learn about which mordants to use. The outcome depends on what mordant was used and if it was added afterward or soaked ahead of time. I do believe that I will be forced to keep notes - I'm not into taking time to write things down when I'm engrossed, just love going along with the flow but I can see it will be necessary especially if I am happy with the results.I am only now getting my creative house in order - I've been making samples for upcoming workshops and waiting to hear about some other opportunities that are in the pipe line. In the meantime, I've made two pieces of felt fabrics to cut up for another vest and created a sample book of silk paper for a workshop in Portland, Oregon, later this year. Here are the pictures of the felt that I am now going to cut up and stitch back together to create a vest - so fun to play with felt this way as you can play around with your design elements as you go along - nothing is set in stone; I'll be teaching this workshop for the Baltimore Weavers Guild this coming November.

For this project I used a red/violet silk burnout wrap that I found at TJ Maxx a while back andn used it as the inspiration piece and used a variety of techniques to create texture although I have learned through experience to leave a few places rather plain for design purposes - very, very fun when it all starts to come together! I have some ladies from Tennessee who are coming to visit me to learn how - I met one of them, Helen, who is a dear sweet soul when I taught a while ago in Richmond and she brought her good friend Sue to take the Blossom Wrap class at the Maryland Sheep and Wool - these ladies are adorable and so eager to learn everything they can about felting - I can't resist because I have had those same feelings. I just can't believe that they travel that far to learn from me :-)

Here is the silk paper, embroidered by hand and then enclosed in a book to keep all the samples together; I'll be teaching several workshops at Opulent Fibers this coming August and I'm so excited to see Kristi's setup especially those cool felting tables - I've been following her since we met at the MFS in 2012; have quite a bit of her wool and other fibers in my stash and it is luscious - love working with it!